A long and winding road

How I did, or did not, buy a house in Spain. The ongoing saga of one mans experiences on the path to purchase.

Getting Here. Later July
09 August 2009 @ 17:11

Later July 2009

Right, back to work. Where was I? Oh yes.

Get some money. Check

Find an area to live in. Check

Visit said area. Check

Locate a property. Check

Make an offer. Check

Run into unforeseen difficulties. Check

Pull out of purchase. Ah well not quite. As little as 3 days ago (as at time of writing) and having heard nothing for over a week, I received an email from a completely unknown and unheard of lawyer informing me that he had made an appointment for me to see him, at his office 350 km away, on Monday morning at 10:30 to discuss the sale. I shall leave it to your imagination what the contents of my reply to that was. Copied, by the way to the agent, from whom I have still received none of the requested paperwork, nor indeed contact of any sort despite repeated phone calls. I shall wait with bated breath to see what transpires.

Anyway, having encountered aforementioned setbacks, the best laid plans etc. etc., it was back to the internet.

Found 4 or 5 properties which might suit, so fired off emails requesting more information. The theory being that I would check out each and every one before making the trek back again.

What did I get back?

In all but one case, exact copies of the information posted on the internet. Nothing more, nothing less. The one case which did include additional information was nothing like as detailed as I wanted. So off went the replies suggesting the kind of ´more´ information that I had had in mind (decreto 218 once again).

And what has been forthcoming? Nada, nothing, zilch, not a sausage. Now why might that be do you think?

Actually when I say nothing, what I actually mean is excuses, you know the ones. The owner is away, in the UK, dead and buried in a field somewhere. Anything other than what I need or what they are, by law, required to have and supply, even the simple request to send me a Google Earth/Maps location has been met by a wall of silence.

All that is except one.

Believe me when I tell you that this one deserves a post, nay a blog, of its own but more of that in Getting Here. Early August.

SteveHi, I´m a 50 year old semi-retired computer system designer, I´ve been living in Spain for 8 years and have finally decided to buy a house and settle down. I thought this was going to be easy! Wrong!! Even with 8 years of experience in Spain and speaking the language I feel I have opened the biggest can of worms ever created. So this blog is going to be a, hopefully daily, insight into what I am doing, or not, from now until I actually move into my (legal) new home. Enjoy! Want to know more? See the posts below entitled More about me and Introduction.